As soon as the UK decided to ban China's telecommunication Huawei, from its 5G telecoms networks, the debate regarding the security threat from Chinese equipment again intensified in the mainstream.
Recently, the British government has replaced security
equipment provided by Chinese-owned tech companies at offices of key government
officials.
This comes after the MPs and peers called on the British
government to crack down on the use of surveillance equipment from two Chinese
companies, Hikvision and Dahua, which have already been blacklisted by
Washington, Financial Post, an American-based publication reported.
However, there is one threat that has gone under the radar,
the tiny components made by Chinese companies in devices connected by the
Internet of Things.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has evolved from niche
industrial applications to being ubiquitous in homes, offices and some
vehicles. These technologies are great to help in our day-to-day life but it
turns out to be data collectors which can be used by a hostile state such as
China to influence, pressure or threaten an adversary, company or individual.
All these connected functions are enabled by tiny cellular
IoT modules. Unlike semiconductors or 5G base stations, they are rarely
marketed as complete products, which goes some way to explaining why the risk
appears to have been lost on London and Washington.
According to the publication, CISA, the US cyber security
agency, recently warned of critical vulnerabilities in Chinese-made GPS-enabled
IoT devices in cars and motorcycles. They were found to contain hard-coded
admin passwords and other flaws that would not only allow Chinese suppliers to
monitor the location of these devices remotely but to potentially cut off the
fuel supply while vehicles were in motion.
Meanwhile, Prof. Fraser Sampson, Commissioner for the
Retention and Use of Biometric Material and Surveillance Camera Commissioner
welcomed the UK's move to replace the Chinese surveillance system.
He told Asian Lite that other government departments would
review their existing systems and will consider the clauses suggested by him in
procuring surveillance and security equipment.
Sampson is an expert in criminal justice and national chair
of the Association of Police and Crime Chief Executives. He said that the
market is flooded with privately owned and unregulated recording devices like
dash cams, mobile phones, and video doorbells etc.
"We don't need these many CCTV cameras in our public
places. We simply need a system to compile the content and edit to make it
useful for the security purpose," he said.
Other rights groups are campaigning for Hikvision and Dahua
to be banned in the UK due to the companies' involvement in the Chinese state's
repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China. Hikvision and Dahua cameras are used
in concentration camps throughout the Uyghur region. Both companies have
contracts worth at least $1.2 billion for 11 separate, large-scale surveillance
projects across the region.
Chinese authorities have detained up to 1.8 million Uyghurs
and other Turkic minorities in internment camps since 2017, according to
numerous investigative reports by researchers, think tanks and foreign media.
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